Health Care and Bioscience Litigation

Walter & Haverfield has successfully represented a variety of companies and individuals in litigation and investigation in the following areas:

medical practice group dissolutions
credentialing peer reviews and disciplinary hearings
non-competition agreements
National Practitioner Data Bank reporting issues
disputes with third party payors
physician / hospital business disputes
medical staff issues including bylaws
qui tam actions
RICO claims, and, OIG and FDA investigations
health care providers responding to criminal and civil false claims litigation
antikickback investigations
licensing issues
self-reporting issues
payment suspensions
intellectual property litigation
breach of contract litigation

Our section's litigation group includes experienced attorneys who practice before federal and state courts and administrative agencies and includes a former Chief of the White Collar Crime Unit for the Northern District of Ohio who oversaw health care fraud investigations as government counsel.

Representative projects include:

Representing providers and management company in settling allegations in civil False Claims Act liability and damages of $180 million related to Medicare billing.
Defending providers involved in cases, audits, and investigations under the False Claims Act, including qui tam defense of improper Medicare billing and coding allegations.
Representing providers in pre-indictment criminal investigations of illegal remuneration and Medicare billing fraud by the U.S. Department of Justice and Office of Inspector General.
Representing employees of a nationally known biotechnology company in a criminal investigation, including allegations of off-label selling activities.
Representing providers in Medicaid billing fraud investigations conducted by the Ohio Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and Attorney General's office.
Serving as special counsel to criminal defense attorneys on the health law and regulatory matters required to evaluate and defend criminal allegations.
Negotiating with regulatory agencies on collateral consequences of fraud and abuse including medical licensure and exclusion from federal healthcare programs.
Representing providers in payment suspensions and reversal of Medicare and Medicaid overpayment demands.
After a trial involving the breakup of an ophthalmology practice, our client was awarded nearly $1,000,000, including partial attorney fees, premised on breaches of contract, fraud, and related claims. All counterclaims against our client were dismissed.
Winning more than $1 million for a successful businessman against his employer for unpaid disability benefits. The case involved complex questions of Ohio and North Carolina state laws, as well as federal law under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"). The defendant was ordered to pay attorney fees due to the unjust nature of its conduct. A portion of the award was trebled under a provision of North Carolina state law.
After a physician's medical staff privileges were terminated at two hospitals, both institutions prepared to file adverse action reports with the National Practitioner Data Bank and State Licensing Board. Our attorneys obtained a Federal Court order that no report be made until a peer review hearing could be conducted. Our client prevailed at the hearing and no adverse action reports were filed.

Recent News

Michael J. Jordan was a featured speaker at the 6th Annual U.S.A./Japan Joint Forum on Health Care, held on November 6-7, 2010, in Osaka and Fukuoka, Japan. The topic of Mike's presentation was, "The Relationship Between a Hospital and Its Medical Staff."

In the article, "Courts will examine PPACA's constitutionality," published in Managed Healthcare Executive, Michael J. Jordan discussed the nature of pending legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

In the May 18th, 2009 on-line version of the publication, American Medical News, Ryan Williams discussed the issue of archiving physician-patient e-mail correspondence in the article, "Don't Toss All Your Practice's E-mails in the Virtual Trash."

Recent Publications

Winter 2010

In the article, "A Physician's Last Chance," published by the Federal Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association, Michael J. Jordan and John E. Schiller discussed the challenges facing attorneys when contesting, through the state or federal court system, a physician's loss of hospital privileges.

November | December 2007

In the November/December, 2007 issue of Northern Ohio Physician, Michael J. Jordan, Chair of Walter & Haverfield’s “Health Care Litigation Group,” discusses the practical implications of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 in his article entitled, "Concerns with the National Practitioner Data Bank".